Whether you’re anticipating a move, supporting a loved one, or simply looking for ways to give back, this conversation is filled with practical tips, community resources, and inspiring stories about how ordinary items can turn a house into a home of hope.

Welcome to "Looking Forward Our Way." In this episode, hosts Brett Johnson and Carol Ventresca discuss the sometimes daunting topic of downsizing, a reality many of us face when life changes require a new living situation.

Packing, moving, and deciding what to do with cherished possessions can be overwhelming, but there’s a compassionate alternative you might not know about.

Joining them is Phil Washburn, President and CEO of The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio. Phil shares insights into "Downsizing with a Heart," a social enterprise program designed to ease the transition by handling donations and disposal, all while funding the Furniture Bank’s mission to help families in need.

Together, they unravel the emotional and logistical challenges of downsizing and highlight the impact of furniture donations—not just on donors, but also on thousands of families rebuilding their lives.

You'll hear wisdom, compassion, and actionable advice from the heart of Central Ohio’s nonprofit community.

If you like this episode, please let us know. We appreciate the feed back, and your support of offset costs of producing the podcast!

Here are 3 key takeaways from our conversation:

1. Holistic Downsizing Support: Downsizing with a Heart simplifies the process by offering a one-stop solution for donation and disposal. Their team works directly with clients to assess items, manage the labor, and ensure everything is handled respectfully.
2. Meaningful Donations Make an Impact: The Furniture Bank prioritizes high-need items like sofas, beds, and dressers. Every donation helps local families in transition and keeps furniture out of landfills, giving your household items a second life.
3. Planning Ahead Reduces Stress: The best advice? Start early! Phil emphasized the importance of planning ahead to make downsizing less overwhelming—helping both those moving and the relatives who might handle estate cleanouts.

Moments

00:00 "Adapting Through Business Challenges"

03:05 "Streamlined Downsizing & Donations"

07:16 "Streamlined Donation and Disposal Help"

10:48 Realtors' Decluttering Recommendations

13:21 "Collaborative Support in Columbus"

18:04 Stress-Free Estate Cleanout Assistance

21:06 Downsizing: Plan Ahead, Reduce Stress

24:49 "Creative Tools and Time Surplus"

29:03 Team Building Through Furniture Volunteering

32:40 "Homes of Hope: Furnished Housing"

35:15 "Annual Bed Race Fun Event"

37:05 "Start Ahead, Step Forward"

We would love to hear from you.

Give us your feedback, or suggest a topic, by leaving us a voice message.

Email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com.

Find us on Bluesky and Facebook.

Please review our podcast on Google!

And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

The views and opinions expressed by the experts interviewed on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. The information provided in these interviews is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals for specific advice or information related to their individual circumstances. The podcast host and producers do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information provided by the experts interviewed. Listener discretion is advised.

Copyright 2026 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

Mentioned in this episode:

Listener Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the experts interviewed on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. The information provided in these interviews is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals for specific advice or information related to their individual circumstances. The podcast host and producers do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information provided by the experts interviewed. Listener discretion is advised.

We are Looking Forward Our Way. Hi, this is Brett. I'm with Carol, and many of us have walked into the home of a relative or a friend and realized their living situation no longer works for them. Maybe it may even be detrimental to their health and well-being, but the thought of downsizing has us cringing with thoughts of moving, furniture packing, boxes, trips to the local thrift store. You know what we're talking about. Today we're highlighting Downsizing with a Heart, a social enterprise program from from The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio. Let's welcome our expert guest, Phil Washburn, President and CEO of The Furniture Bank, who's going to give us an incredible alternative. Phil, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for the invite. I'm glad to be here with you.

We are so glad to meet you and hear more about this program. Brett and I have been talking about downsizing for a while.

As a topic.

As a topic. Yeah, yeah, because we've both been through it. And I've got stories. I think you and I talked on the phone and I had a lot of stories about downsizing. So we really appreciate your time today. But before we get into the details of your work, we always like to learn more about our guests. So tell us about your background. What brought you to The Furniture Bank?

Yeah, thanks. That's a great question. And thanks for welcoming me and inviting me to be here with you for this conversation. It's such an important conversation. So I've been in the nonprofit sector for most of my working career. As I was studying in college to, go to med school, actually. Med school.

I love these stories of just that left turn.

Left turn.

Yeah, exactly.

I love it. And, you know, I enjoyed helping people. That was why I wanted to go into medicine. And, and then I, I, you know, started volunteering and getting involved in nonprofit work, and I'm like, hey, you know, this is fun, so let's take some time off. And, you know, one thing leads to another, and, you know, a number of different nonprofits later, um, you know, I've been able to be Blessed to run a great organization in the Furniture Bank and work with a great team to really do an important mission that oftentimes gets overlooked.

Right.

You bet. Now, your colleagues saw a need for this service many years ago, first as a general moving company and now focusing on downsizing. What were they finding? Was it just the need for a mover or was the issue more complex because a family was forced to dispose of personal loved items, which is really hard to do, and didn't want to simply throw everything to the curb?

Yeah. You know, that like any business, it goes through different iterations. You think you're going to solve one problem and then you kind of walk down the path and then you kind of adjust as you go. You know, it started with two things. One is, you know, how do we get access to more furniture? And if you go as far upstream as you possibly can in the process, right? When people are moving is the time when they're most likely to make donations. And so why not get into that space? Be right there, you know, front and center at those moments of decision around moving. Well, what we found is that, you know, moving is incredibly complex. It's incredibly difficult.

And honestly, some of the margins in that weren't great. And so if we're looking at this as a nonprofit, as a way to get access to furniture, but also to help fund our mission, we needed to really hone in. And that's when they really began to see that the niche that we could really play is in this downsizing space. It's really helping to navigate that furniture donation, that home good donation process, manage the labor aspects so that it's a seamless experience for those customers. Leave the moving itself as far as relocating from one location to another, that furniture that you're gonna keep to the experts that have been doing it for a long time. But really inserting ourself into the journey at that point when it makes sense, whether that's before the move or after the move, and meet that need of all of those items that aren't gonna make it into the new place and really just assist with, you know, the packing and the, you know, consolidation aspects in the journey.

And a lot of folks who aren't familiar with the nonprofit sector don't know that notion of social enterprise, which is how do I, better fund my nonprofit even by creating a for-profit business. So many folks know about the thrift stores of Goodwill and the Habitat for Humanity's ReStore, those kinds of things, which are huge international enterprises. So when you get down to our local level nonprofits, it's harder. A lot of people see it in catering and restaurants and things like that. But As you said, the social enterprise has to be making money. I mean, that's the whole sole purpose. It's not just giving more services to individuals as a nonprofit. So it's a fine line that you had to walk to get to this point.

It is. And as nonprofits, we're constantly having to do things as lean as possible. We're always having to— watch the budget. And that skillset is sometimes quite different than operating a business. And many nonprofits, and again, you know, 3 nonprofits that I've been blessed to work with, we've all done social enterprise. And so this is a space that I understand. And you have to think differently when you're running that business within the nonprofit than when you run the nonprofit. And yet it's also important to making sure we can fulfill our mission.

When I was the director of a nonprofit, Brett was on my board as the board president. And we never started a full-fledged social enterprise, but we started doing services that were offshoots of free services for employers, but that they were willing to pay us to do. And so we were able to start a new revenue stream from these recruiting, personalized recruiting events that we had not done before. There are lots of gyrations around that, but it's, as I used to tell board members who were all business people, you know, you all have it really easy because you make a widget, sell it, make another widget. We make a widget, give it away, find more money so we can make it again. So there's that extra step in the process of nonprofits. So, but it's also probably the best job in the world.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't trade it for anything because you know everything that you're doing is making a tangible difference in the lives of folks in our community.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Phil, when— let's provide our audience with, you know, the step-by-step process when you're looking at downsizing. Individuals need to first find a new residence. That's something that's outside your bailiwick. You know, they're doing that themselves. But once they know where they're going to be, then they can determine what they need of their current household and what they need to get rid of. What services does Downsizing with a Heart provide to meet that direction? And how does your staff assist in that, all that decision-making?

Yeah, so we have honed in, we're able to assist really at any point in that process. But what we find is that most of the time when folks call us, what they need us is in that last portion where they need to have one person that they can trust that's going to come in and help them with all of the things that they want to donate and then all of the things that they want to dispose and do that all in one fell swoop so that you're only interacting with one person. You have a very clear understanding of what that's going to cost. And that's where we really can step in. And so if you're ready, whether that's post-move or pre-move, to get rid of those belongings that you know you're not going to take with you, into the new location, that's when we come in. We walk through the space with you. You tell us every piece that's needing to go. We look at it and say, hey, does this meet our donation standards or is this something that's going to need to be disposed of? We are very clear about that upfront.

And then we provide the labor to do it all. So we take it, whether it's in the living room, we'll take it all the way out, put it in our truck, and then from there, it's out of your hands. And you can know you're going to get a receipt that tells you these are all the items that we took for donation, and then this is what is being disposed of. So it's a pretty clear process for those.

What are the kinds of things that the Furniture Bank is looking for in those donations? What are you— what's really top of your list?

Yeah. You know, we will take anything related to the home with the exception of a few handful of things. We don't do durable medical equipment. We, we don't do pianos and organs, things like that. And then certain hazardous materials we're going to avoid. But really anything else related to the home, we can take and find a productive use for. And the things that we need the most of and the things that we really appreciate in the downsizing side of things are sofas, beds, and dressers. That's— those are the 3 key items that every family that we're serving through the Furniture Bank are looking to get.

And so those are the high priority items, but we will take anything, dishes, pots, pans, you know, linens, you know, small side tables, you know, sporting equipment, everything you can think of that when you think of a house, the average house has all of this stuff. We'll take it all. And if we can keep it in productive use, we will. And if it's, really at the end of its usable life, then we will let you know that and we'll help you with the disposal.

Just a reminder to our audience that we are going to have resources with the Furniture Bank and other programs here in town available on our website when we post this podcast because this is important information and you may not need it today, but you might need it in a year. And so we want to make sure that you have all that information. And one of the things I think I want to add to that resource list with the Furniture Bank is Can people drop stuff off to you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Absolutely.

I just want to make sure. I didn't want to put that on the list and it's not true.

Okay. Absolutely.

Good. Okay. Yeah. So if somebody's interested in utilizing your services, do they just call or is it an agency referral? And then is there a process for determining eligibility?

Yeah, that's a great question. So Downsizing with a Heart, because we operate it as a social enterprise, we serve the entire community.

Okay.

Anybody is welcome to use that. And in fact, many of the folks who come our way are being referred to us by realtors.

Mm-hmm.

You know, those realtors, they work with us on a regular basis sending folks our way. As they're getting ready to help you sell your house, mm-hmm, they're gonna go through and make recommendations like, hey, we need to declutter so that the house looks, you know, a little bit more presentable. You might wanna call, you know, Furniture Bank and, and, and, and Downsized with a Heart, have them come out. And help, you know, with some of those items that you're not going to take with you. Get them out now. That way, pre-listing, you're ready to go. You know, it looks great. And so, you know, that's how you, you know, we get a lot of the customers from the program is through those realtors.

But anybody is welcome to give us a call. You can call us at The Furniture Bank and our team there will ask you a few questions and that'll help them to know whether you're just needing to make a regular donation that is actually free, you know, we do free donation pickup through our regular program. But if you're going to be doing a larger scale project, that's when it gets referred to the Downsized team and they will take it from there. And it works with everybody.

And, but then if somebody is a family in need of furniture, there is an eligibility, is that correct?

That is correct. Yeah. So all of the families that we serve, about 3,500 families that come through our door every year.

Wow.

They're coming to us through an agency relationship. And then, and so we work with a network of about 75 to 100 agencies, faith communities, even some for-profit companies that they make the referral to us. They pay us a small referral fee to help assist with that, that process, but it's then free to the client.

Okay.

And the clients really, it can, can have a myriad of backgrounds, you know, of why they end up at a place where they need furniture. You know, it could be, you know, coming out of homelessness. It could be relocation due to trying to avoid domestic violence situation. The stories go on and on. It could be they lost everything in a flood, right? It's just families in our community who can't afford to go out and buy the furniture that they need to be successful as they're navigating one of these life crises.

Well, we not only have incredible nonprofits serving our community, serving individuals who live here, but also our nonprofit network works really well together. So if you're working with one agency, they are going to get you around to the other agencies that you need, which is amazing.

It is. And that's the great thing about the Columbus community. You know, we do work really well together. Collaboration is, is first and foremost right in front of everybody's, you know, minds. And what a great testament, you know, when you look at how we can maximize efficiency and really make the experience the best it possibly can be for these families we're serving because we're working in collaboration. So they're not having to go through this process where they're having to be asked all these invasive questions so that we can determine eligibility. That's already happening when they're working with these case managers. They're getting all of that information.

So why would we duplicate that when it's already been done? That case manager just calls us up and says, "Hey, it's time. They need their furniture." They give us the information that we need just to make sure that we're tracking our impact, but then we go ahead and move forward, make it as seamless as possible for those clients.

And you get to work with them much quicker too. I mean, it's that you're restoring humanity more quickly.

Absolutely. You know, and it's about making sure that they're experiencing a dignified process. That's so important to us. You know, we're one of the last furniture banks in the country that actually have clients come into our showroom and pick their furniture.

Wow.

And we do it because it provides them some say in what they're getting, right? They're not just being told, hey, you know, this is what you get. We're allowing them to have a vision for what they want their home to look like. And if there's a piece of furniture that really speaks to them, then they can have that. And so that dignity piece is super important to us, and it comes through in how we try to operate.

Right.

Now, so those other organizations that are, for lack of a better term, dictating what furniture moves out, is it just so furniture can rotate out to make space for new furniture? Is that some of the reasoning behind that?

No, it really is just to make sure that those clients have the best possible experience. Gotcha.

Well, I mean, in other organizations that are saying that they have to, you know, that they don't, they're not allowed to come in and pick. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, so many of them, it really comes down to a logistics problem.

Oh, gotcha. Okay. I was just curious, 'cause you would think the model you're talking about that you do makes sense. Other than, okay, maybe some furniture may not move very quickly because nobody wants it. I understand that, hey, we got to get this out of here so we can move other things in. But at the same time, it's going to move. No, somebody's going to want it at some point.

That's exactly it. And people are going to want it, but it comes down to logistics. For us, it's very challenging because, you know, from a client coming in in the morning, they might pick 5 pieces of furniture, they might pick 20. And so then we have to adjust on the fly how we're going to get that furniture delivered to them that day. And so many agencies that are like us, they just look at it as that's too much things that are outside of our control in order to really maintain efficient logistics. And so they just kind of remove that variable.

Yeah.

And it makes sense if that's what they found the best way to work. Yeah. Okay.

Interesting. Okay. There's a lot to this moving stuff.

There is so much.

Yeah. I know when I've moved, that's probably been the That's the most painful part of the process is finding a mover. So there are times, and Brett and I have both gone through this, where we had to clean out, you know, something happened with our parents or a relative and suddenly you're going in and it's usually very quickly. It's like a last-minute decision and there is so much to deal with. But you also have a lot of folks who are calling saying, you know, my mom just passed away, but I live in California and I can't get there and I need to get her stuff moved because I don't want to have I don't have to pay another month's rent or whatever it could be. So let's talk about what that looks like and what are the levels of services and estimation of time and cost that Downsize with a Heart can do.

Yeah, that's a great question. And so our basic service, oftentimes people, by the time they call us, they know exactly what they're wanting to get rid of and they can tell us, hey, I have 15 pieces of furniture and, and 10 boxes worth of, you know, um, of house goods. And that's very straightforward to us. It's a simple hourly rate. We usually can get that done in an hour to an hour and a half. We let them know kind of expected time, but, you know, we, you know, uh, we charge what it actually takes. And then, you know, it's, it's very straightforward. Those larger jobs, just like what you're talking about, and this happens, um, really you know, all too often these situations.

We had, you know, parents whose son moved to Columbus for a job and died tragically. And so the parents are out of state, you know, dealing with this loss and then having to also deal with how do we get, you know, their son's belongings taken care of, right? And so for them to be able to call us and us to literally come in and say, we're going to take care of everything. And you don't need to worry about it. And this is what, you know, what it costs. It really relieved the, you know, so much of that stress, you know, in a time when they're already so fragile. So in those larger jobs, what we're going to do is if we know it's going to be a larger job, we're going to send a team member out. We're going to walk it and we're going to determine, hey, what is the scope of this? How long do we think this is going to take? And we give you a general estimate of what that hour how many hours is that going to be? For a full house, it could be a couple of days, you know, as much as a couple of days for us to do, especially if we're having to box up lots and lots of goods. What we'll do at that time too is we'll try to estimate what percentage of that is going to be disposal and how much of it is going to be donation.

So you have that kind of clarity upfront. And so at that point, you know, we can kind of go in a lot of different directions. We also have some partner agencies, basically for-profits that really specialize in more of the disposal cleanout space. And so if we're stepping into a situation that maybe there's been some hoarding and involved, you know, we're not gonna probably be the best, most affordable resource for that. Mm-hmm. There's probably some other services that are gonna do a better job of that, but we still will work with them to make sure that anything that is donatable is still going to come to us and we'll take our portion of that and then leave the disposal piece to that partner. But if it's a fairly normal job where it's just a matter of boxing up the kitchen, bagging up the clothes, things like that, we can give a pretty good estimate of what that's going to take. And that way the customer knows, hey, this is how much it's going to take.

This is how quickly we can get on it. And oftentimes, We're scheduling 2 to 3 days out. So, we can get on it very, very quickly. And that's really helpful. We see a lot of folks who are in assisted living situations. And in those places, you have a very, very short window to get the belongings out when somebody passes away. And so, we can really step in very quickly and fill that need in those situations. You know, whereas others might take longer to get on the schedule.

Yeah. Oh, we don't want to miss the opportunity to give our listeners more information on the programs and services of the Furniture Bank overall. Your mission is to provide furniture to those in need through generous donations of community members. You also provide educational programs to the public. Talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, so, you know, part of this idea of downsizing is learning how to plan ahead and think ahead, right? And so we oftentimes are out in the community doing presentations, various senior centers and things like that, because we want to equip folks with what they need to do to start the process now so that it makes it easier when the time comes, that when it becomes urgent. You know, my family's dealing with a situation right now where, you know, you didn't expect something to happen and now all of a sudden there's urgency and decisions have to be made and you feel rushed, you feel stressed, you're not sure you're making the right decision. And so if we can all work a little bit ahead by starting the process, planning in advance, then we're going to reduce that stress for everybody involved, whether that's the the person who's maybe downsizing and moving into that next situation, or maybe their family members or friends or whoever's left to kind of manage that estate, helping to reduce their stress as well. So, it's simple things like, how do you start to plan ahead, right? How do you think about, you know, all of these things that are oftentimes tied with positive memories? And what are some things that you can do? Like, you know, taking a camera and just walking around and talking about and recording your feelings, you expressing your feelings so that you have that later on down the line when you're, you know, when you no longer have those items, you can watch that and still have some of that, you know, experience of the nostalgia and yet knowing that that item is now maybe helping some another family, right, go through, you know, a tragic situation that they're dealing with.

Right. I, the only saving grace I had when my parents passed, and they had a house that was 4,500 square feet, was that I had a year to deal with it because I ended up moving back home to take care of my dad. And I just decided I was just going to not dump everything at the Goodwill, and I was gonna figure out ways to donate items so that they were reused for a particular group and really enjoyed doing that. It was stressful and it was pushing my brain cells to the last nth degree, but it was so much easier to deal with when you knew it was going to a group that truly needed. The items. So.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that because it's, you're getting to experience some joy in the process.

Right.

Instead of only experiencing the stress.

Right.

And that's the thing that we love to help people think through in advance is if you can enjoy the process, knowing that you're giving something away in a meaningful way, that's gonna leave a positive impact, you're gonna feel a lot better. Than about, you know, when you have to do it and you only have a week to make a decision.

Right.

And then it becomes distress.

Exactly. I mean, I was— this was more than 20 years ago. You know, downsizing was not even thought of then.

And nor did it have the term, right? Right. It's called cleaning out, getting rid of mom and dad's junk. Yeah.

It was like throwing it away.

Or as my mom said, it's like, I'll just leave it for the next person to worry about. And my sister and I joke about it. About that all the time, say, "Yeah, we're the next persons. Thanks, Mom." You know, after she passed.

Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, because my dad had a metalworking workshop and a woodworking workshop. I mean, I had tools coming out the wazoo. So to come up with who to push stuff onto, you know, basically is what you're doing. And as I said, the only thing that saved me was that I had time. Because, boy, that is so not the usual scenario by any stretch. And now, luckily, we have a lot of organizations who are doing this or people to talk to to come up with ideas.

Yeah, there's definitely— there's companies out there now that are doing this that you can pay them, and they will come in and help you think this all through. And our kind of philosophy is, hey, if you sit down with us for an hour and listen to us and actually put into practice the lessons that we've seen time and time again, you can save all that money and not have to hire that person.

And save your relatives.

Yeah. And that's the key thing is it's saving that next generation. Yeah. It's like, it's somebody else's problem. Well, once you've been on the other side of that, then you do not want to leave that for someone else.

Right?

Right. It's the last great gift you can give those folks who are taking care of your estate is an estate that is well-planned.

And yeah, not just the legal estate, but the actual estate stuff. The physical estate. Right, right. Yeah, good point. Phil, as you and I were talking, preparing for this episode, one program we discussed that's really unique and it's the Furniture Bank Woodshop Program. So you have a team of woodworkers who actually build furniture for families that are moving into housing. Your website shows that this team has built 15,000 dressers. I mean, just to hear that number is amazing, a group of volunteers doing this.

Let's give a shout out to those volunteers. But tell us more about what they've accomplished and how this is not just paying it forward, but in actuality, it's a value for them personally.

Yeah, that's a great highlight. You know, we love our woodshop program, and it started because a group of retirees were, you know, looking for a way to give back. And so there's a great woodworking club here called the Woodworkers of Central Ohio. and they approached us 12, 13 years ago and said, hey, we love woodworking. We have these skills. We have time on our hands. You need furniture. What can we do? And so they, of their time and of their genius, put together, uh, this whole program where it is a manufacturing environment.

The jigs that they have developed and built themselves are just amazing. They've designed these furniture models that can be assembled quickly, efficiently, using raw material that actually gets donated to us from Sauter Woodworking up in Northwest Ohio.

Wow.

It's material that they were literally throwing away. We're keeping it out of the landfill. Our volunteers have been creative enough to create these furniture models that that can use that material, and then it all goes into the homes of the families that we serve. So yeah, the website hasn't been updated in a while. I just saw this morning, we're over 19,000 dressers that our volunteers have built, and it's nearly 60,000 pieces of furniture in total that has been manufactured by volunteers. It's, it starts with a, a great core group of, of, of, of woodworkers who come in every week and they're doing some of the harder stuff. They're taking the raw material, they're using the dangerous table saws and, and they're breaking it down into usable pieces. But then we work with lots of community partners.

Companies will bring out, you know, teams will come out with, you know, and have a workday and team building day. Civic associations, churches, things like that. They'll come out and volunteer, and they'll take some of those raw pieces, and we have such a great system that you don't have to know anything about furniture building. We'll train you in about 10 minutes, and for the next couple of hours, you're gonna build furniture, and at the end, you're gonna see this pile of furniture that you can feel good about, 'cause you know it is literally going to help a family in the community. But you were kind of talking about this isn't just about the furniture. For many of our woodworkers that are coming in, this is an essential part of their week. They love it. Gives them purpose, right? It gives them a reason for—

it's not just a hobby.

It is not just a hobby, right? It is, uh, it is a central part of their week. Many times they're going to go out to lunch afterwards and, you know, you know, hang out and spend time together. They, they'll drink their coffee together and chat for 5 or 10 minutes before they get going. But when they get going, you better stay out of their way because they are focused. But it is a great thing to see. We have, and what I love about it is the ages. We have folks who were blessed enough to be able to retire early. They got a lot of life left.

And so they don't want to waste that away. And so they're giving back. I have a volunteer who's about to turn 94. He still comes in every week and helps to repair furniture that's been broken, and that takes a whole nother skill set. And for him, it's what he lives for. It's what he looks forward to. It's that time hanging out with some of the other volunteers. It's that time of being able to kind of give back in a way that—

Right.

He really still understands that he has value and purpose even at this stage of his life.

Right. And I'm not sure if I'm equating this correctly, but I can remember way back when this started that the volunteers basically said every family should have a dining room table to sit around and have a meal together. And they had started by making tables.

Yeah. Yeah. What the first piece was. I would, it sounds like it probably was tables. Dressers are another big part of that. But yeah, you know, what they make now is they make dressers, they make kitchen tables, coffee tables, side tables, and then twin and full-size bed frames. And those are all things that we don't get enough donated. The demand is higher because all of those things are typically things people can hold onto longer.

Longer, right?

When you go through a couch, it's pretty clear when it's reaching the end of its usable life and you're ready to move on from it. Well, you know, we probably all have a dresser in our house that's over 50 years old. They last a lot longer.

They do.

Right? Yeah. And so when you can hold onto it longer, well, it takes it a lot longer before it gets to us at the Furniture Bank and can be used to help somebody else. And so that's the stuff that we try to really have them focus in on. Is those items that we just don't get enough donated to us.

Right. And just talk about insight though, for these individuals to realize what's important about a family moving into a house. It's not just the roof.

It isn't.

It's how to make family.

It is. You know, we say we turn houses into homes of hope, and that's kind of our tagline. And what really drives us. You know, I've been involved in affordable housing work for a good bit of my career. And, you know, and we're finally having this, this, this regional and national conversation around affordable housing. And I'm so glad to hear it because it's so important. But the thing that often gets missed, and in so many of the affordable housing programs that exist, especially ones funded at the federal level, It explicitly says that the dollars cannot be used for furniture. And so it never made sense to me that we're taking folks oftentimes who are coming maybe off the streets, living on the land, getting them rehoused, putting four walls and a roof over their head, but making them still sleep on the floor.

It doesn't make sense. And so the furniture component, I think we're trying to raise the awareness that if we're going to have to have affordable housing, we need to have affordable furniture as well. It's such an important part of the equation. Wonderful.

So are there any new programs or services on the horizon for The Furniture Bank?

You know, we're just going to keep doing what we do, and we're excited about that. We just launched our second satellite location in Newark. We have a satellite location in Lancaster as well that we help serve families out of, and we also have thrift stores in both of those locations. So we're very excited that happened in July of '25. So we're focusing there. But, you know, we do have a couple of big things coming up that we are always excited about. The first is our annual Furniture Bank Day. which is coming up April 25th.

And it's really just a, a community celebration around the work of the Furniture Bank, raising awareness for the need for folks to donate their furniture, to not just take the easy way out and put their furniture out on the curb, but to give us a call and let us come and keep that furniture in productive use. So that's Furniture Bank Day, usually goes alongside of Earth Day, you know, is when we kind of do that every year. And then in the fall, we have—

You realize you're going to put all of those videos on Facebook, you know, are going to go away if we don't put stuff out on the curb for people to take.

That's right. That's right. And then in the fall, we have our annual bed race. And I always love talking about the bed race because it's just a fun way of spending a morning while making awareness of the important work we do and having some fun. And so it's exactly what it sounds like. We get people and they, a team of 5, 1 person riding the bed, 4 people pushing the bed. And it's literally a bed with a mattress on wheels. And we have them run downtown street right in the middle of Franklinton on a Saturday morning, racing head to head against other folks in the community.

Community who are looking to have a good time. And it is a blast. I encourage people to always check it out. This year it's going to be October 3rd, and we're right there at Landgrant Brewing Company in Franklinton. It's in our neighborhood where we have our facility, and we love supporting the neighborhood, supporting the community. But it's just a fun way for folks, and you don't even have to run. You can come out and just watch. And folks dress up, they get in costumes, they decorate their bed.

The things that you see, it just never blows— it never ceases to blow my mind how creative folks are. But again, it's all done for a good cause. So I would say check those two things out.

It's a great way to help support the work of the Furniture Bank while having some fun in Well, we definitely have to try to do something, make sure everybody remembers those dates too. So wonderful. We always get to the end of our conversation too quickly. As far as I'm concerned, we could sit here and talk about nonprofits forever. We ask our expert guests for their last words of wisdom to the audience.

Well, I think I've already said it, but I'll reiterate it. The more you can do to start ahead, to think ahead, when it comes to downsizing, the better it is for everybody involved. You know, so even though we know it's an overwhelming experience, just start taking a step. And each step leads to the next step, to the next step, to the next step. And in the end, everybody involved is going to benefit from that first step.

Don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid. Take that first step.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, many thanks to our expert guest, Phil Washburn, President and CEO of The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio. Ohio for joining us today. Listeners, thank you for joining us as well, too. You're going to find contact information and resources we discussed in the podcast in the show notes and on our website at lookingforwardourway.com. And we are looking forward to hearing your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes.